I have been saying this for years. Living in Europe for 7 years I have been able to get more into football (soccer) than I was before. I played for my school in junior high and I was actually pretty good but my dreams were to play American Football and Baseball.
When I first came to Sweden I started playing on weekends with some dj friends of mine who actually played in a league. After scoring a goal in the first game I played, I ended up scoring in 12 straight games over the next weeks. I was by far not the best player on the field but my athleticism made up for that. I was faster than most of the players out there even tho they had way more skills than me. I was just able to get to the spot faster than them. Im not saying Im pro level or anything but it opened my eyes to this game.
I had to ask myself, why arent there more great athletes in the States playing soccer?
The first reason I thought of was, soccer in America is a rich kid sport when your in middle school and high school. Most of the players on the national team come from private schools so the talent level is very thin. Kids in the ghetto will do most anything to make it to pro sports and get out of the hood and soccer just doesnt pay enough in the U.S. to make this happen.
Comparing sports sometimes is just stupid tho. American Football is by far the most brutal and dangerous sport I have ever played and a lot of people from outside the States think wearing helmets and pads makes the game soft but I am certain that if they stepped out on that field and took a few hits, they would change their minds really quick. Football (soccer) takes a whole different set of skills and a tremendous amount of conditioning.
I would love to get some kind of program started in The U.S. that shows inner city kids that they can get payed millions on the international level. I really dont hate on any sport, (except maybe handball lol), because I know the work that goes into becoming top notch at a sport.
What If The Best American Athletes Played Soccer
Tuesday, June 19, 2012 2:59 pm
For the past week and half, Euro 2012 has made Alexi Lalas and soccer relevant to the average American sports fan for the first time since the 2010 World Cup. The publicity for soccer has led analysts and fans to start mumbling about the state of the U.S. National Team in the 2014 World Cup.
People may wonder why the United States has not found the tools for a top-notch soccer team. What is the problem? In such a populated, democratic, wealthy nation, where are the soccer stars?
The answer is simple: Every other sport. The top U.S. athletes do not play soccer. They play basketball, football, baseball or another popular American sport with a higher price tag attached to it. In Europe, the top athletes go into soccer. In the United States, they do not.
But ... what if?
What if soccer was the most popular sport in the U.S.? What if the U.S. had a domestic soccer league that paid the highest salaries in the world? What if the top U.S. athletes began training for a professional soccer career in their youth rather than for another sport?
Well, it would look something like this. In a theoretical world, the following would be the 23-man U.S. National Team if soccer was the premier sport of the United States.
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